Yesterday was my gum graft consultation with the periodontist. He did the exam of my mouth and some scaling. I was really shocked when he said "Do you mind if I put some freezing in there?" I said "You're doing this today?!" and he said "Yes, if you don't mind". And I said I was fine with it. He said he decided to do the surgery because my receding gums won't get better by themselves. I got three grafts by my lower teeth. My dad paid for it, but now I have to pay him back. I have stitched on the root of my mouth and a dressing is covering the wound. I also have a dressing covering the grafts in front of my bottom teeth. The dressing on the roof of my mouth tastes terrible and is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. As expected, my chin is swollen.

I've had a gum graft before (in 2009). Today, the pain is much more manageable. I also have to eat soft mushy foods for a week.

CC, tell me your dental stories.

EDIT: Healing well. It's been a week and three days.

Pings

Oi, mushy foods for a week, that sounds like a long time. Hopefully the pain will soon go away. My dental story is quite boring, just braces when I was younger. Only once I went to the dentist an extra time besides my yearly check-ups, and that was last year, when I was in pain, and he found that there was food stuck between two teeth that were a little bit apart, and my gums started to get infected. He cleaned it up, but now the teeth are even more apart, so I have to put a knot in my dental floss in order to get it cleaned, lol.

I had braces for three years and my wisdom teeth out my junior year in high school. Hated the braces, but I had a horrible overbite. I still have an overbite but it's not nearly as bad now. The wisdom teeth surgery I had to be put under for because of my anxiety problems. The bottom two were impacted. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be though. I only took one dose of my pain meds.

I have lots of dental stories. I had a jaw corrector before I had braces. I had an 11mm overbite and a huge ass gap between my front teeth. I have a little overbite now, but it's nothing compared to what it used to be.

I also had all four wisdom teeth taken out at the emergency dentist. I couldn't open my mouth and I had to cut up my hamburger in little pieces just so I could eat (that was also probably done in 2009). I also had my right top, back molar extracted (it was recent. It's probably been 3 years now). I had a noodle touch that tooth and I basically cried out in pain. That was also done at the emergency dentist. Let's just say, my dentist wasn't happy I had my molar extracted (he also wasn't happy about the wisdom teeth either when I had it done). When he asked the emergency dentist about my x-ray, they magically disappeared. I was pissed, because I was out of a tooth, but I got over it.

Oh, and I also have an implant on one of my bottom front teeth. It was a root canal and I fractured it, by biting into a chocolate covered pretzel stick (the ones they sometimes sell at Starbucks).

Yesterday I had surgery for an implant and they did grafting when putting in the implant. Molar. So I have no tooth right now, have to wait six months for the implant to fuse to the jaw. Not happy about it... it was a cracked tooth that I got crowned, then a root canal, now this. All this just this year! ugh!

Getting wisdom teeth out was awful. This was many years ago when I was in my late teens early twenties. Two pulled and the two impacted that had to be cut out. I was in a lot of pain after that surgery.

Ooh, I completely forgot about wisdom teeth, lol. I had all 4 of them taken out at the same time, I think when I was 22 or around that. I was fully asleep, didn't want to stay awake during that, dentist has never been a fun thing. I'm still nervous whenever I have to go.

Oh yes... I know all about implants as I have one myself. It's a long process and you get two caps put in during different healing stages: a healing collar and a healing cap. I forget which one comes first.

Man, having all that done does not sound fun. Hopefully things are on the up and up from here dental-wise for you!

I've just had my wisdom teeth removed. Got it done when I was 18, and was out for the whole thing. Woke up feeling like a sleepy blowfish, haha! Fortunately, I healed quickly, and even though I was eating soft things I liked -- only being able to eat said things was not my favourite. Fortunately haven't had anything since, and am hoping to continue the trend.

I've never had to have anything done at the dentist (not even a filling) but my wisdom teeth do give me a lot of headaches. They've been coming through very slowly, for over half my life now! I had an x-ray last time I went to the dentist (a month or two ago) and was told that everything's perfect and there are no visible problems with the wisdom teeth yet, but I just have this feeling that I'll need something done about them after they've finished growing! I dunno. I'll have to keep yall posted!

I've had plenty of fillings.

For some people, their wisdom teeth are absolutely fine and nothing needs to be done. Other people, have to get theirs extracted. Just depends on how the teeth grow in I guess.

I had one of my upper wisdom teeth removed in the summer. I was actually pretty scared because I'd heard all these stories about nerve damage and stuff, but the pain was so bad that ibuprofen and paracetamol didn't help at all on the last couple of days. So when I went to the dentist and he started working on the tooth, I thought, "okay... NOW IT BEGINS" and a few seconds later I heard him say, "and there we go, all done!" XD And it healed really well, too, no pain whatsoever after that.

I'm having a dental exam done in January, it's been over five years since I had anything else done to my teeth except for that wisdom tooth removal, so... I have a feeling that it's going to cost a lot to have my teeth fixed. D: I know I have at least two huge cavities, and I guess the other two wisdom teeth should also be removed, one of them's digging into my cheek and the other one's partially showing so food always gets stuck in there. Thank goodness for student loan? :/

I never heard of nerve damage if a tooth needs to be extracted.

I've had dry socket after my top back molar was pulled. Usually, it only occurs if you get a tooth pulled on the bottom. Dry socket was pretty damn painful.

Oh god, I hate teeth. Hatehatehate teeth. And the dentist. Pretty much if it involves teeth I hate it.

I had braces. I got all my wisdom teeth extracted at once and then got dry socket on both sides of my mouth (strangely enough, it didn't hurt as much as it annoyed me--tasted blood for what felt like weeks. Now I can't stomach the taste of grape juice because I'd always have it with my lunch then and that taste mixed with the blood = nasty).

I had a root canal in August, which was actually pretty painless compared to the braces and wisdom teeth ordeal--no worse than a filling. Actually, the pain from the infection was a lot worse. I had a huge sore on my gum and of course convinced myself I was dying haha. But after the surgery and a week of an antibiotic, the swelling was gone and it felt fine. I haven't even gotten my crown yet.

I had an awful root canal experience once. The dentist told me it would take just over an hour to do, but it ended up taking him 3 hours (I later learned that he's had malpractice problems in the past and was very unpopular with a lot of people - should have done my research). I'm allergic to codeine so I can't take the medication they usually give people for pain after the procedure. When I told him that and asked if there was something else he could prescribe, he told me "oh you should be fine with Tylenol, you won't need anything else." Well, 4 hours later when my freezing came out, I took 2 Advil and 2 Tylenol and I was still in so much pain I wasn't even crying so much as tears were just free-flowing down my face. My mom drove me to the clinic where I work and I saw one of the docs I work with who was absolutely appalled at the fact that my dentist had told me not to expect pain. She immediately prescribed me something nice and strong for the pain (which didn't even help all the way, though it took the edge off enough to be bearable). I have since made it my mission to tell everyone I know never to see this dentist because it pains me to think that he could ever do this to anyone I love. So awful.

Hope you're feeling better soon, and that the dressing isn't too awful!

I am not a fan of the dentist. I have really bad anxiety in general, throw in the dentist and it just bad. The strange thing about me though is that I don't mind the needles/drills/etc, it is the x-rays. Weird right? I went in for a cleaning a few months ago and they couldn't get a single x-ray because I couldn't handle the sensor thing in my mouth (they did get one of those full mouth x-rays though.) The tech looked at me like I was insane. Luckily, I have a very understanding dentist.

I have always been bad with them but it got worse after I had a root canal. I ended up dry heaving during an x-ray because they kept just shoving stuff in and out of my mouth. When I went back a few days later to get the crown, I almost cried when they had to take x-rays. This wasn't my current, understanding dentist either. She was obviously annoyed with me. I have to go in soon to get two crowns on my back molars thanks to teeth grinding. Not looking forward to it.

My worst dental experience was braces. They hurt all the time, I couldn't eat anything after getting them tightened and they cut the inside of my mouth. After 3 years of that garbage they finally came off and left cement stuck to my teeth that took 2 years to get all of it off, since my regular dentist couldn't do anything but scrape at it every 6 months. I haven't had much done dental wise, maybe 2 fillings. But braces were horrible.

I need a crown for my tooth that was a root canal. I can't afford it because it's over $1,000.

The dressings came off last week, a few days after the surgery to be exact. It's been a little over a week and I've already pulled out two stitches from the roof of my mouth because I knocked them free with a cracker lol

I'm a clencher and grinder as well.

My braces cut the inside of my mouth too, but the end result was worth it, right?

I guess, my bottom teeth were pretty crooked, haha. It's nice to have a pretty smile.

I didn't realize how late I was in replying to this. Yay! It sounds like you're healing well. <3

I can empathize over the stitches lol. After my wisdom teeth came out (which was a much less traumatic experience than my root canal), I had one stitch in one of the sockets that just would NOT go away. I ended up having one of my coworkers cut it out for me at work one day lol (I'm a paramedic, so it wasn't some awful, back-room, unsterile procedure haha).

I cut a stitch out myself because when I rolled my tongue over the roof of my mouth, there was a flap of skin that was bugging me. I cut off a piece and yesterday, I pulled them out.

I guess I still can't eat hard stuff.